Another semester is over. And it has brought me a lot of rewarding jobs and a rollercoaster of emotions. I have once again translated books for some of my favourite publishers: Reservoir Books, entreDos, Libros del Zorro Rojo, Salamandra and Literatura Random House. I have also worked once more for the Reina Sofía and have started a new collaboration with a publishing house that I love, Ediciones Invisibles. Bring on 2022!

I’ve been doing this since 1989 and I have translated very many books: bad or good, long or short or also very short, with or without pictures, with gusto or reluctantly, alone or often with other colleagues…

Well, it turns out that with this little gem, which came out a few weeks ago, I have reached a new mark: four hundred tiles. And I couldn’t be happier!

It’s Up at the Villa, by my admired Somerset Maugham. Titled Una villa en Florencia in the Spanish edition. And it’s one of the short ones, one of the good ones, one of those translated with gusto and one of those with no pictures, though it has a stunning cover full of 🍊🍊🍊 by Andy Noguerón. And it’s also the first one that I have translated for the very wonderful Pequeños Placeres by Ediciones Invisibles!

I’m very happy with the translations I have published this first half of the year, several of them for publishers for whom I had never worked before. They include two graphic novels for Reservoir Books: my favourite comic by Marjane Satrapi and the expanded edition of Kobane Calling by Zerocalcare, plus another comic by Ken Krimstein for Salamandra Graphic. There are also two novels, one by my venerated Andrea Camilleri for Salamandra and another one by Petina Gappah, on which I worked at Looren, for Literatura Random House. Then there’s a picture book by Jules Feiffer for new publisher entreDos. On top of that, my first two titles for Libros del Zorro Rojo are two hilarious little books by the very wonderful Miriam Elia. And finally two exhibition catalogues I really enjoyed working on have come out, one for Reina Sofía and one for Fundación MAPFRE. To be continued…

ACE Traductores, the Spanish association of literary translators, will be forty years old in November 2023. To pave the way for the celebrations, its journal, Vasos Comunicantes, has recently published a series of three articles that review its entire history and, ultimately, the recent history of Spanish translation. Here are the three instalments: the first, the second and the third.

Furthermore, in this same issue, no. 57, a fascinating interview with Catalina Martínez Muñoz has appeared. And it also includes a profile of Esther Benítez, a historical translator and activist for the rights of translation professionals. It was written by Maite Gallego and Carmen Francí. Esther Benítez is remembered every year in the translation world thanks to the award that bears her name.

One of the great joys awarded by my profession is to be able to work anywhere you choose. And every once in a while you get to do residencies in places where you can translate intensively, isolated from the world but in contact with other colleagues. Last year I was lucky enough to receive one of the six-week scholarships offered annually by the Chalet Mauriac. The Chalet is the former summer home of François Mauriac, the Bordeaux author who wrote Thérèse Desqueyroux and Viper’s Tangle and who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1952. Today this house, in the village of Saint-Symphorien, located in the area of the Landes, is owned by the Region of Nouvelle Aquitaine. And ALCA, the region’s agency for books, cinema and audiovisual arts, organizes different residency programs here throughout the year .

Although last year my trip hung by a thread due to lockdown 1.0, in the end I was able to come and spend part of the planned weeks at the Chalet. I worked on a complex and fascinating novel, Après la guerre by Hervé Le Corre, published in France by Rivages… and soon to be published in Spain by Reservoir Books. I also spent my time reading Mauriac and walking in the pine forest. And had a chance to speak at length about my work with Olivier Desmettre, who interviewed me for Prologue. The residency was a fantastic and very productive experience.

And now the world has smiled in my direction again and I have been invited to come and spend a few more weeks here, along with Valèria Gaillard and Željka Somun, who have won this year’s translation scholarships. I’m working on a different project that’s just as exciting… and translating here in the middle of this peaceful forest is just a dream. Long live residencies!

This very long year has been the most prolific since I started translating and now that it ends I really need to rest and take things easy for a while. But I am also very happy with all the translations I have published in the last six months: a novel by Philip Kerr and a memoir by Andrea Camilleri for Salamandra, Carlota Gurt‘s first book of short stories for Navona and the novel than won David Nel·lo the Sant Jordi Award for Catedral; wonderful picture books by Farren Phillips and Tohby Riddle for Babulinka and Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince and other stories for Juventud; the catalogue for the Mario Merz exhibition at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía and the catalogue for the Bill Brandt exhibition at Fundación Mapfre‘s new KBr in Barcelona, as well as four fantastic comics: one by Igort and one by Tom Gauld for Salamandra Graphic, Joe Sacco’s latest for Reservoir Books and Elisa Menini‘s Nippon Folkore for Norma. And now for something completely different: a well-earned holiday!

Here we have more talks and interviews, three to be precise, to celebrate September 30th, International Translation Day (ITD), in this virtual year.

To begin with, Belén Santana, who won Spain’s National Translation Award last year with Memorias de una osa polar by Yoko Tawada (Anagrama), and who is also a lecturer at the University of Salamanca, spoke in an interview about the profession, the challenges it presents and the satisfactions it gives.

Meanwhile, at La Lumbre bookshop in Madrid, Amaya García Gallego and Pablo Moíño Sánchez, moderated by Mateo P. Avit Ferrero, celebrated the day on behalf of ACE Traductores. They talked about translating songs and used as an example Boris Vian’s Le Déserteur. And they even sang!

Finally, Teresa Lanero and Irene Oliva were interviewed in Traspunte, on Onda Cádiz TV, about how they understand their job and about everything it has taught them.

Also, on the occasion of this year’s European Day of Languages on September 26th, the Trinity Centre for Literary and Cultural Translation and the EUNIC network of EU National Institutes for Culture had writer Irish Edna O’Brien as a guest. She read a passage from her latest novel, Girl. Afterwards, the translators of that book into Spanish, German and Italian (that is, Ana Mata Buil, Kathrin Razum and Giovanna Granato) spoke about their work and the challenges they had faced.

Celebrations galore in 2020!

One of the upsides of this very turbulent year has been the chance to attend—albeit virtually—a whole series of events and lectures that not everyone would have had access to otherwise. And one of the most inspiring moments has been the Sebald Lecture in Literary Translation, organized by the British Center for Literary Translation together with the British Library and the National Center for Writing. In 2020, it was given by award-winning translator and university professor David Bellos, who wrote Is That A Fish in Your Ear? The Amazing Adventure of Translation (Penguin, 2012). The title of the lecture was “The Myths and Mysteries of Literary Translation” and it was simply marvellous.

Translator, proofreader and post-editor Rocío Serrano has just written a very interesting, thoroughly researched and highly enlightening article on machine translation and literary texts for Vasos Comunicantes, ACE Traductores’ online journal. Is the future here yet?

The recent online conference ‘Translation in comics’ was just marvellous. It was organized by Blanca Mayor Serrano and Álvaro Pons for the Aula de Cómic at the Cátedra de Estudios del Cómic Fundación SM–Universitat de València. I was lucky enough to take part in it with this talk about the publishing process seen from the point of view of someone who translates comics, which was a dream to prepare:

There was also an interesting round table on teaching comic translation with my colleagues André Höchemer, Esther Cruz Santaella, Raúl Gisbert and Regina López Muñoz:

Sergio España participated as well with a talk about translation in the comic industry:

And Paco Rodríguez spoke about the main traits of comic translation:

All in all, a great assessment of different aspects of the trade!

A very complicated semester for the publishing world just ended. There was no Sant Jordi and no Barcelona Comic Fair, and new books published in February and March suffered particularly, since almost nobody was in time to buy them. All in all, I have published six translations: a graphic novel by Giorgia Marras on Empress Elisabeth of Austria for Sapristi and another one by Alessio Surian, Diego di Masi and Silvio Boselli on Maria Montessori for DeBolsillo; two novels, one by Andrea Camilleri for Salamandra and another one by Àngel Casas for Catedral, and above all two of the most difficult books I have ever translated, the essays in The Source of Self-Regard by Toni Morrison for Lumen and Il libro degli errori by Gianni Rodari for Juventud, which features wonderful illustrations by Chiara Armellini and comes out when we celebrate that the author was born a hundred years ago. Let the second half of the year begin!

Italy has just launched New Italian Books, a great site that promotes Italian literature and culture around the world, in the style of Books from Norway, New Books in German and New Spanish Books. The project has been launched by Treccani with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and the Centre for Books and Reading, together with the Italian Publishers Association. They publish newssheets, surveys, interviews and analyses on translations of books by Italian authors worldwide. They also offer information on the main book fairs and on grants for translations, as well as a list of literary agents.

What a great new project this is!

I have really negleted this section, when so many things have passed! Just the month on May was extremely eventful. On the 31st, Xavi Ayén interviewed Valentina Alferj, Andrea Camilleri‘s right-hand woman, for La Vanguardia. He also spoke to Pau Vidal and to me as representatives of his many translators. The interview, which you can read here, came with this wonderful recreation of inspector Montalbano by Marc Pallarès:

A few days before that, on the 27th, I spoke with Vasos Comunicantes, the magazine published by ACE Traductores. They have started a series of talks with translators called ‘Del amigo, el consejo’ and I spoke about books on translation, dictionaries, favourite translations and bizarre searches. And Camilleri came up again. You can read the interview here.

Finally, on the 21st something very exciting happened. We launched Gianni Rodari’s El libro de los errores, which I translated a few months ago and Juventud has just published with illustrations by Chiara Armellini and design and layout by Mercedes Romero. They put together a big virtual event: José Luis Polanco, Piu Martínez, Élodie Bourgeois and I chatted about Rodari for a long time, moderated by Germán Machado. Over five hundred people at a book launch! Unheard of!

This new book, which comes out when we celebrate the centenary of the birth of Gianni Rodari, also allowed me to dust off my previous translations of his work for Kalandraka and Blackie Books and to once again remember how wonderful the author is and how much I have learned from him:

💡Hola. No, aquí, buscando ideas en los libros de #GianniRodari que he traducido para @EdJuventud, @KalandrakaEdit y @BlackieBooks… de cara a la presentación de “El libro de los errores” mañana jueves a las 6.

Inscripciones👉https://t.co/EyM32FWqWq

🐮https://t.co/oeIEQREqgz pic.twitter.com/iXhgHXO1qv

— Carlos Mayor (@CarlosMayor) May 20, 2020

I’m extremely happy at the end of 2019 because the last six months have been once again full of great books. I’ve published the following translations: a novel by Jesse Ball and a memoir by Andrea Camilleri for :Rata_ and Salamandra; an exhibition catalogue devoted to Takis for MACBA, together with Irene Oliva; three comics by Marjane Satrapi, by Kris and Vincent Bailly adapting Joseph Joffo and by Odyr illustrating George Orwell for Reservoir Books and DeBolsillo, and four illustrated books by Beatrix Potter and Helen Oxenbury, by Marianna Coppo into two languages and by Anna Obiols and Helena Pérez García for Juventud, Joventut and Savanna Books. Ready for 2020!

This is a year of professional anniversaries for me. Fifteen years ago, several colleagues specialising in art translations and I set up Barcelona Kontext, which changed my working life. And we’re still here, translating exhibition catalogues and art books.

Twenty years ago, I started sharing an office, which changed my whole life and led me to some of the most important people in my life. And I’m still here, now in el Born, happier than ever.

And thirty years ago (it’s been thirty years since so many things happened) I received my first commission. My first professional translation. That was the beginning of very many things. And it turns out that today is the 5th of November: ‘Remember, Remember the 5th of November’.

In November 1989 (ahem) I had just started translating V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd for Ediciones Zinco and I was walking on air. All of a sudden, my name was appearing in comics next to theirs! Snif. And I’m still here.

Here are the translations I have published during the first half of the year: two novels by Andrea Camilleri and Joan-Lluís-Lluís for Salamandra and Navona; two exhibition catalogues about Berenice Abbott and Sergio Prego and Itziar Okariz for Fundación Mapfre and the Venice Biennale–Koenig Books, and five comics by John Carlin and Oriol Malet, by Ray Bradbury and Tim Hamilton, by Zerocalcare, by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Moebius and by Nick Drnaso for DeBolsillo, Reservoir Books and Salamandra Graphic.

Turkish-into-Spanish translator Rafael Carpintero has recently received the Best Translation Award 2018 at the Estado Crítico Awards for his translation of Sabahattin Ali’s Madona con abrigo de piel (Salamandra). And he has written a very insightful (and very funny) article on translation awards, which you can read here (in Spanish).

I’m very excited, because the comic book on the left, the Spanish edition of A Cartoon Introduction to Philosophy by Michael F. Patton and Kevin Cannon, in now in its fifth edition. I translated it last year for Debolsillo, it’s a gem and it smells really good. It’s all about Heraclitus, who tells the story of philosophy with a lot of humour and great panache. I recommend it.

And it reminds me of the comic book on the right, by William Messner-Loebs and Sam Kieth, which I translated for Ediciones Zinco. This one is about Epicurus, who talks about philosophy with a lot of humour and great panache. It’s also a gem, but it doesn’t really smell anymore, since I translated it, ahem, twenty-eight (28) years ago! Ah, the dizziness.

So, it seems that I have been translating exhibition catalogues for 25 years now, for I started out in a very distant 1994, working for Fundación La Caixa. Since then, I have been lucky enough to work on many a project for quite a few museums and art centres.

This is the last one: at Barcelona Kontext we have been translating the catalogues for Fundación Mapfre‘s exhibitions into Catalan for a handful of years and a new exhibition has just opened in Barcelona. «Berenice Abbott. Portraits of Modernity» will be at Casa Garriga Nogués until the 19th of May and then it will move to Sala Recoletos in Madrid from the 1st of June to the 25th of August, and to Huis Marseille in Amsterdam from the 7th of September to the 1st of December.

The catalogue looks really beautiful, doesn’t it?

A couple of weeks ago, Álvaro Macías Rondán published this article about literary translation in the Spanish newspaper 20 Minutos: ‘La traducción desde dentro: un oficio invisible que habla alto y claro‘ (Translation from Within: An Invisible Trade That Speaks Loud and Clear). He interviewed José Luis López Muñoz, Daniel Sancosmed, María Teresa Gallego, Carmen Montes, Ana María Bejarano, Eugenia Vázquez-Nacarino and myself to discuss no less than our profession, the legendary visibility and our favourite books out of all the ones we’ve worked on.

Juan de Sola has won the XXI Ángel Crespo Translation Award, given out by ACEC, Cedro and the Gremi d’Editors de Catalunya, for his translation of Correspondencia 1914-1922 by Marcel Proust and Jacques Rivière. The book was published last year by La Uña Rota and De Sola was also in charge of the preface and the notes. Congratulations!

On the 1st of December, at 7 pm, ACE Traductores will present the Esther Benítez Award 2018 to Concha Cardeñoso for her Spanish translation of Daphne de Maurier’s My Cousin Rachel, published by Alba. The ceremony will be held in Madrid, at Casa del Lector, the headquarters of ACE Traductores. Congratulations!

I’m terribly excited because my next translations are ten great comics and graphic novels, some ready to print and some yet to be started. They are by Alejandro Jodorowsky/Moebius, Nick Drnaso, Roberto Saviano/Asaf Hanuka, Georgia Marras, Marjane Satrapi, Greg Pak/Jonathan Coulton, John Carlin/Oriol Malet, Zerocalcare, Ken Krimstein and Odyr, and will be published by the likes of Salamandra, Reservoir Books and Sapristi. Good stuff coming up!

 

I continue to translate for several museums and art centers regularly, and recently two catalogues on which I have worked have been published. The first is Dadá ruso. 1914-1924, from the exhibition that can be visited at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (MNCARS) until the 22nd of October.

This exhibition explores Russian avant-garde art through the perspective of the Anti-art canons associated with the international Dada movement. The catalogue, edited by Margarita Tupitsyn and the Department of Publishing Activities at MNCARS, has been designed by Tipos Móviles. The texts, both new and old, are very complex and have required thorough research. Luckily, for this translation into Spanish there was a flank well covered: for the transliterations I received help from Marta Sánchez-Nieves, award-winning translator of Russian literature.

The other catalogue is for the Brassaï exhibition put together by Fundación Mapfre earlier this year. The show already opened at Casa Garriga Nogués in Barcelona back in February and then it moved to Sala Recoletos in Madrid. On the 17th of November, it will open at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), where it will remain until the 17th of February.

At Barcelona Kontext, Mercè Bolló and I were in charge of the Catalan translation. The curator and editorial director was Peter Galassi, while Lacasta Design took care of the graphic design.

Once again, we celebrate International Translation Day on the 30th of September. This year, the International Federation of Translators (FIT) is promoting it with this poster by Italian graphic designer Riccardo d’Urso. And the Association of Professional Translators and Interpreters of Catalonia (APTIC) is also celebrating it on Thursday with a lecture by multi-award-winning translator Dolors Udina, who will talk about the fascinating female authors she has translated, from Jean Rhys to Virginia Woolf.

Three cheers for Saint Jerome and many happy returns to translators all around!

 

De vegades hi ha llibres che ti piacciono così tanto que tienes que traducirlos dos veces.

I have just read an article called ‘¿Que por qué traduzco?’ (So Why Do I Translate?), posted several months ago by renowned Turkish-into-Spanish translator Rafael Carpintero in his blog, El Carpintero Traductor. And I like it, like every thing of his that I have read. And it makes me think of another article, ‘Por qué traduzco’ (Why Do I Translate?), published by renowned English-into-Spanish translator Ismael Attrache in El Trujamán. And I also like it, like every thing of his that I have read. And that’s that.

It doesn’t happen everyday. Sometimes translators are in touch with their authors, sometimes we get to meet them in person and sometimes we even have the chance to chat with them for a while. But rarely can we spend a whole afternoon with an author we admire, ask them whatever we want and then hear them speak in public in the evening.

That’s what happened to me a few days ago when Tom Gauld came to Barcelona to speak at Primera Persona, a literary festival held at CCCB. He also launched the Spanish edition of his new book, Cooking with Kafka (Salamandra Graphic), which I translated a few months ago. It features wonderful strips such as these two the publisher has animated for our enjoyment:

Before that book, I had already translated a graphic novel by Gauld that’s sweet and funny and endearing, Mooncop. There’s also a video:

And so it happened that I spent the afternoon as Tom’s interpreter for several interviews with the Spanish press, such as this one for El Periódico.

At one point, he signed a copy of the Spanish edition of Mooncop for me, and then I asked him if he could possible draw me while I was translating one of his books. He made me this caricature on the credit page of the Spanish edition of Cooking with Kafka:

And then, in the evening, he gave his talk at Primera Persona. The theatre was packed:

It was, to sum it up, a memorable day. And luckily there was absolutely no tension of this sort between author and translator:

My second residency this year, after the fellowship at the Bogliasco Foundation in January, is in Rome. I’m spending the month of April at the Casa delle Traduzioni, working on a terribly difficult and terribly entertaining book by Gianni Rodari to be published by Editorial Juventud.

I’m enjoying my time here tremendously, translating a lot and in good company. And of course the highlight of it all was attending the big tribute to Andrea Camilleri at the Casa del Cinema in Villa Borghese, a few days ago. The Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia presented the latest issue of a Bianco e Nero magazine, dedicated to Il Maestro, who taught at the Centro in the fifties and sixties. And among the many texts of friends, former students and experts on the work of Camilleri there is a little article by me! I talk about the translation into Spanish of the last case of Inspector Montalbano, to be published by Ediciones Salamandra. You can read it here.

Finally, and thanks to a recommendation from Ignasi Cristià, this has been the soundtrack to that afternoon in Villa Borghese and to so many walks around Rome this month. It’s the symphonic poem I pini di Roma by Ottorino Respighi {1. I pini di Villa Borghese 2. Pini presso una catacomba 3. I pini del Gianicolo 4. I pini della Via Appia}:

‘Translators are the vanguard of literary change: we need better recognition’, says the illustrious Daniel Hahn in a great article he has written for The Guardian, which you can read here. Last year, Daniel won €25,000 at the International Dublin Literary Award for his translation of A General Theory of Oblivion, by Angolan author José Eduardo Agualusa. With half of that money, and the backing of the Society of Authors’ Translators Association (TA) and The British Council, he funded an award designed to recognise a great literary translation debut published in the UK.

The first winner of the TA First Translation Prize is Bela Shayevich for her translation of Second-Hand Time by Svetlana Alexievich (Fitzcarraldo Editions), edited by Jacques Testard. Translator and editor share the £2,000 awarded (you can see all six shortlisted books in the picture below). And in this piece Daniel takes the chance to state some very clear facts.